Refine homepage messaging

[dmdj03]

We've been receiving tons of valuable feedback on our existing website from prospective customers and developers on how we can better articulate our product and answer common questions about exactly what Balanced is and what Balanced provides. In this latest mock, we've updated our overarching message to reflect the three basic functions we offer: Processing, Escrow, and Payouts.

I wanted to thank @ajsharp for his candid input. If anyone has additional thoughts, please share them with us. We welcome the feedback!

[mahmoudimus]

I think for "Balanced Processing" we need to add:

• Get your money next day. Not 7 days later. Not 30 days later. Next day.

[mahmoudimus]

We should also mention the fact that we're white labeled and nothing requires your buyers to sign up for a Balanced account

[mahmoudimus]

Is the snippet really that necessary? If they are, they should show should show different scenarios, not just payouts.

[mahmoudimus]

We should also have testimonials on our website linking to our customer's blog posts about us.

[mjallday]

• Where do the learn more links go? docs/overview?
• Links to customers should go to case studies on how Balanced helped customer win
• Balanced for Marketplaces section doesn't have any links to learn more
• Where's my rotating spinner? :)

[jkwade]

1. The green links (i.e. "Balanced Processing") above the fold look better white.
2. Customer logos and links to press should be above the fold, perhaps directly below the intro section. We could use phrases like "Used by:" and "As seen in:"
3. Add more customer logos to the homepage. There are 31 customers listed here: https://angel.co/balanced
4. Agree with Mahmoud's points as well

[jkwade]

can we add some follow us links? twitter and angellist for now

[Breefield]

I feel this portion makes much less sense without the -> arrows:

Also, I know you are trying to brand the three services Charge/Payout/Escrow as Processing/Payouts/Marketplaces: ..but to me that actually makes things much more confusing, "are these separate services & API's etc?" When in reality they are all the same API.

The logo says it to me:

[jrus]

Grab-bag of comments:

• Green writing on black does not have enough contrast to be readable.
• More generally, I don’t like the whole dark gray section. It just feels like it weighs the whole design down, and doesn't fit w/ the general white background theme. Should get rid of the black rectangles inside: an extra level of explicit separation/hierarchy is unnecessary here, just the layout of the text/whitespace is enough.
• I don’t think “introducing” is necessary before Balanced Payouts.
• It's kinda weird that the payouts section has a list of businesses using it, but none of the other sections have a similar list.
• The messaging on the “automate your payments” section is weird. The curl command doesn’t have enough context for anyone who isn’t a programmer, and is completely unrelated to iframes/redirects. Also, it's weird how the title for that section is closer to the center instead of aligned w/ all the other headings. It looks like it was just tossed in. Syntax highlighting on the curl command should either be scrapped or modified: currently it’s weird.
• Does “try it out” still just create a test marketplace & dump the user into the dashboard? It would be nice if we could make some kind of quick tutorial thing helping people make sense of that. Currently it’s not the greatest experience [admittedly this isn’t a note directly about this design alone].
• Would be nice if we had an extended explanation for each of the sections, maybe on a separate page (is that where those "learn more" links would go? if so, we should add one for the marketplaces section too). I’d be happy to help write some of these. Right now we only have the front page, some FAQ questions, and the developer docs. None of these is really ideal for answering basic business questions (pricing, how things basically work, etc. etc.), targeted at non-programmers.
• Would be nice to have clearer links to docs and support, beyond just at the top of the page / maybe a section of this page directed at developers.
• Might consider punctuation at the end of "solve your payments problems today" and "join the balanced community". Maybe fine without.
• I’m not convinced about the alternating white/gray stripes going down the page. I guess the idea is to very clearly separate sections of the page and emphasize that they're independent, but I wonder if it would look better w/ just one consistent background. I think these separations could maybe be indicated just by the whitespace, with no explicit separators or distinctions between sections at all. It's at least worth trying.

[lay2000lbs]

I agree with @Breefield. It is confusing how the services interact. Maybe if they were visually connected and it said "use one, two or all three".

Also, maybe you could drop the subtext on the features, it could just be "Charge", "Payout", "Escrow"

[mahmoudimus]

From a friend who wants to remain anonymous:

Changes I would recommend:

(1) more more color. the overall feeling is not of security, rather its boring.

(2) add a person / human in there somewhere. lots of user studies that having a person on the page increases conversion. period. maybe that is only for consumer facing products but I bet you human psychology applies even to developers.

(3) top black bar in not needed for new users - the landing page should only be optimized for new users and its creates a visual distraction. when you have a lot of visual weight, people are less likely to feel that the product is "light, clean, and easy to use". its not exactly logical but thats what happens. unless its clickable to check out dash w/o having an account but nothing gives that indication.

I recognize all the feedback is very 'feeling' oriented but I think this is the hardest to get right. after you have a good 'feel' or 'style' for the page, then a/b test copy and small things (like making the "try it" button blue and 25% larger).

this feedback is based on a ton of work at %{BIGCOMPANY} and i sat on the design hiring committee - so I looked at a lot of public work to access if we should hire a particular designer. when evaluating their work, things like this were discussed at hiring committee from senior design folks - who actually knew what they were doing :)

like everything, take the advice with healthy skepticism but know at least 1 person feels that way :)

[ajsharp]

@dmdj03 my pleasure, the changes are looking great :)

[dmdj03]

Here's the next iteration based on your collective feedback.

[mahmoudimus]

And we're live http://balancedpayments.com/

Thanks everyone!